You Guys Think You Like Bjm But You Don’t 🤍 Not Like Me. I Just Needed You Guys To Know That For

hm. little idea batch for some muses i’d like to pick up for indie rp at some point.

frieren — only about ~5 episodes in so i’ll definitely need a bit more characterization before i can even begin to write her. but she’s a high priority muse.

marius josipovic — previously made a chatacter study account for him, may revamp into an honest to god indie rp acc! i really want to explore the (con)man of all time

theon greyjoy — a muse i’ve wanted to pick on for a while now … probably mostly post-ramsay things, or modern aus that are also after the torture. may have a few verses beforehand, but post-ramsay would be a main focus!

john tavner — possible muse. i’ve written him before so i think i’d have a decently good hold on him! will probably need to rewatch the show a bit, but big priority on his relationship with his guitar / his brother / weed lol. also the whole “white torture” thing and being a majorly depressed undercover intelligence officer. but i love the mix of humor and angst with him, so. i’ll probably pick him up!

that’s all i got for now HAHA

This is how my brain chooses a favorite character in literally any media

ao3 wrapped 2022 ( questions not by me, just some i found but wanted to answer bc why not! )

1. how many words have you written this year?

not all of this is on ao3, but calculating it up, i’ve written about 67,000 words this year! specifically: 2k from the haunting of sunshine girl, about 10k from born in blue, 20k for a wip band story, 10k from russian roulette, 7k combined for some unrelated brian stuff, 2k for a lost story, 3k for a hannibal/prodigal son crossover, 7k combined for bates motel stuff, 3k for another lost post-canon story, 2k for a scooby doo story, 1k for a there will be blood fic, aaaand…i think that’s it! a lot more than i thought, that’s for sure lol.

2. how many works did you publish this year?

in total, i published 12 works! in order of date, they are: russian roulette, the new and improved security system, born in blue, my 6 shoegaze fics, change (in the house of flies), broken by bloodied hands, and end song. most of these were published on my side ao3 account rather than my main.

3. what work are you most proud of?

out of fics i’ve written this year, i think i’ve got to say russian roulette. it was a really fun story to write and i’m proud of some of the research i did into it, as well as my motivation and pushing myself to complete it! i rarely complete fics, so it’s a welcome change and makes me really proud of the fic and myself!

4. what work of yours has the most hits?

i’ve got a secret harry potter fic from 2020 that has 17,000 hits as of now!

5. what work of yours got more feedback than expected?

definitely my there will be blood fic. i wasn’t expecting a whole lot of feedback but i got a good amount of praise for it, so that made me really happy!

6. favorite title you’ve used

oooo, this is a hard one…i’d have to say “shoegaze,” only because it fits with the story’s themes so well and has a double meaning! it’s the title of my original band story, and i’ll go ahead and explain the meaning. shoegaze is a genre of music that’s prominent in the story as well as an inspiration for it; this is the genre of music the band plays in the book. the double meaning is that the main character is often gazing at his shoes / looking down because of the abuse he’s suffering at the hands of another character. i came up with this on a whim but loved the idea!

7. if you used song lyrics, which artists’s songs did you pull from the most?

ha, this is an easy one. not song lyrics necessarily, but all of the work titles from my series “shoegaze” are song titles from a band called the brian jonestown massacre. they’re my favorite band and the main inspiration for the story, so i had to do them some justice of course! besides them, i’d say for song lyrics, probably alex g!

8. pairing you wrote the most for this year?

i don’t usually write romance, usually focusing on gen stories so that the audience can interpret it any way they want, but a pairing i wrote the most is probably neil mccormick & brian lackey! again, gen pairing, can be seen as pre-slash or romantic though. i also wrote about the same amount of words for john watson & sherlock holmes, so either one really. as for original stuff, definitely my characters knox ford/silas lowell.

9. favorite pairing you wrote for this year?

gonna have to say neil mccormick & brian lackey. those two are just so fun and i can’t get enough of their relationship, and i think i’ve got a pretty good grasp on them as characters.

10. what work was the quickest to write?

the quickest work i finished was my there will be blood fic; i wrote it in about an hour. my quickest, longest finished work is russian roulette ; it took me about a week and a half to finish! as i started it around new years 2021 and finished it on january 10, 2022. my quickest, longest work that isn’t completed is born in blue - i wrote the first 20k words in 5 days.

11. what work took you the longest to write?

most of them. my longest-running current fic is between the haunting of sunshine girl (started in 2019, has 187k words) and bound to stars (started in 2016, has around 90k words).

12. how many wips do you have in your docs for next year?

oh god, this question pains me. i’ve got about 24 wips in my docs that need to be completed / worked on…

13. what’s your longest work of the year?

shoegaze! coming out to about 20k words written. my longest completed work is russian roulette, at 10k words.

14. what’s your shortest work of the year?

my there will be blood story, coming out to around 1k words.

15. what wip are you taking into next year with you?

like, all of them.

16. what’s your most common “additional tags” tag?

unsurprisingly, this would be ‘angst.’

17. your favorite character to write this year?

that’s a tough call between brian lackey and my original character, knox ford. both are super fun to write and have a lot of angst behind them…i honestly don’t think i can choose!

18. the character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

definitely will graham. trying to beat him into submission with my words doesn’t work - he’s a hard character to get down. his complexities make him nearly impossible for me to truly say, “yeah, that’s what he’d do.” so, will graham, i love you, but you suck to write.

19. what’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

oooo…another difficult question. i definitely want to keep exploring brian lackey & neil mccormick, probably the most, only because i love them so much. but knox ford/silas lowell is also a really interesting one to explore, so maybe them as well!

20. which work of yours have you reread the most?

without a doubt, russian roulette.

21. how many kudos in total did you get this year?

adding it all up, i got 321 kudos this year!

22. which work has the most comments?

russian roulette! coming out to 9 comments in total.

23. did you do any collaborative works this year?

unfortunately not, but i’ve really wanted to! maybe someday i can do a collab with another writer, it’s just a matter of finding someone who wants to lol. and shares a fandom with me, of course.

24. did you write any gifts this year?

no, i didn’t.

25. did you receive any gifts this year?

nope!

26. what’s your most common category?

gen! like i said earlier, i don’t write a whole lot of pairings mainly because i either have a hard time fully shipping the characters, like them in a more platonic way, and/or want the audience to be able to make their own choice about the characters’ relationship. that doesn’t mean i haven’t written romance, though!

27. what do you listen to while writing?

i either have playlists for the characters i’m writing, or i have one of my own playlists i’m listening to that i feel fits the vibe of the story. i’ve listened to the brian jonestown massacre a lot, and also the mysterious skin soundtrack. maybe a little too much.

28. favorite work you wrote this year?

as i’m so proud of it, it would have to be russian roulette! that’s a bit of a hard choice though.

29. most bookmarked fandom?

i replaced this question because the original one, “what line/passage is your favorite this year”, was too difficult. so! my most bookmarked fandom is the avengers/mcu, actually. merlin is a close second, and daredevil comes in third!

30. biggest surprise while writing this year?

probably how much i can write when angst is involved. it didn’t take me that long to finish 20k words for my shoegaze book, and that was all angst / outsider pov stuff. which is my favorite. so i think that!

well, there’s my ao3 2022 wrapped! kind of nostalgic looking back on everything i’ve written this year ; i’ll have to try my hand at this again in 2023!

The Jack Monster and The Smoke Mother

In yesterday’s article, I mentioned in passing that Jack turns into the Smoke Monster. This bit didn’t seem to fit the conceit of the piece, but apparently I should have included it, because everyone’s asking about it. I’ve added it into the article in an addendum, and I’m putting it here as well. I’ll try to keep it “brief” and “simple”, citing only information we were given in the show.

The Mother was the Protector of the Island.

The Mother explained to her sons that going into The Source would result in a fate worse than death (i.e.- Becoming a Smoke Monster).

The Mother destroyed the Man in Black’s village in a most Smoke Monstery of ways, seen here:

What I’m getting at here is that, as Protector of the Island, Mother both had the powers of Jacob, and was a Smoke Monster. She split her duties and powers between her two sons, and made it so they could not kill each other. It would make sense that the Protector of Important Magic Island would be the incredibly powerful cloud of black smoke that can read people’s memories and kill them in seconds. Rousseau was right: The black smoke IS a security system. A very important one, meant to patrol the Island and protect it for as long as it can. Mother was this being, and she also had the power of Jacob: to make rules, to give others abilities, etc. Full-on Island Protector.

But she couldn’t decide which was deserving of the role. She loved them both. So she made it so each would get a part of her. The Gray Mother split herself into dark and light. The problem here is that The Man in Black became the Smoke Monster. He became a security system that wanted to leave its post. That was problem with the Broken Island for so long: One of its protectors had no interest in protecting anything. Both protectors wanted the other dead, but neither could kill the other. Thankfully, Oceanic 815 crashed and Jack was eventually all “Fine, I’ll save the world.”

So. How are Smoke Monsters made? They dip themselves into The Source. Into the Water and Light. Jacob tossed his Brother down and then his Brother cracked his skull, fell into The Source, and emerged as the new Smoke Monster. Later, Jacob found his body draped over a nearby rock and tree:

The Water and Light absorbs the essence of a person and turns them into a Smoke Monster. But they don’t need the person’s body. So The Source moved the body outside.

So what happened to Jack in the finale? He went down to The Source. Desmond unplugged the Island and was unaffected because of his Magic Time Brain. Jack had to plug it up again, though, and the Water and Light DID affect him. He sacrificed himself because he knew the Water and Light would kill him.

But the Water and Light doesn’t kill you. We’ve SEEN what it does. It turns someone into a Smoke Monster, into a Protector of The Island. The person needs to be dead, though, as The Man In Black was dead when he reached The Source. Then it spits out the body. So after Jack was consumed by Light and Water, where did we next see him?

The same place The Man In Black showed up. (Forgive the quality of the picture, I just screencapped an edited montage from YouTube).

The Source spit Jack out once it absorbed his essence for Smoke Monstering. But Jack wasn’t dead yet. He was stabbed and bleeding, but not dead yet. Not like the Man in Black already was when he fell into The Source. So Jack walked into the reeds, lied down with a dog, and died. His eye closed.

Then, however many yards away, a new Smoke Monster burst from The Source. And this time, it was a Security System thatwantedto stay. One that even needed to stay. Jack’s whole arc of the show ended with himneedingto stay on the Island and to do whatever he could to protect it. He believed in the Island, and he believed that he belonged there. Now he was even more correct than he thought. Jack could now happily float around in his new form, helping Hurley clean up Jacob’s mess, and protect the Island he loved, in the form of something he once feared. He did this for many many years, until Hurley’s reign ended and they could both pass off their power and position to Walt, the next true Protector of The Island.

Now let’s go to the Sideways, where Jack keptalmostremembering his life. Every other character had one moment when they remembered everything that ever happened to them. Jack, on the other hand, needed several. A moment with Locke, a moment with Kate. He kept not quite being able to remember. Now, one could argue that this is just because he’s Jack. He’s stubborn and resistant, and just needed a while. However, he wasn’t that way in the Sideways. That was one of the main points in that world. Everyone had evolved and grown in their lives, and they displayed the traits they’d developed in their time on the Island. Sideways Jack was not as stubborn as Real Life Jack.

SO. What’s my point? Jack spent we-don’t-know-how-long as a Smoke Monster on the Island. It could have been years or decades or centuries. Hurley lived a life just as long, but he never changed forms. Hurley remained himself. Jack, however, was Smoke Monster Jack. We saw what being a Smoke Monster can do to a person. As Mother said, it can be “worse than death”. You lose some of yourself. You take the form of other people, you float around asblack smoke. Yes, its essence is you, but much of you is lost over the years.

Jack needed those extra pushes in the Sideways world, because he was so far away from it. He spent his life as Jack, but then he spent X amount of years as another entity. He lost a bit of himself, and each time Locke or Kate touched him in the Sideways, he got a little closer to remembering his life before the Smoke. He needed a drastic wake-up call like his father explaining everything to him in order to truly wake up from his life.

Thulite Winglet

Plus greyscale for sillies (kinda made this cause the election has me stressed man 💀)

Also started re-reading the 2nd arc as I finally got my hands on the books and it has me thinking of my own Jade mountain winglet.

Icewing: Poinsetta, she/her, A glittering icewing who is pretty and knows it. Loves to collect and gets rather flirtatious. Can be boastful but is overall kind and always up for a spa day. Comes from an icewing village that wanted to send their very best so she has a bit of pressure on her shoulders.

Mudwing: Lillypad, she/her, A short standing mudwing covered in moss. She lost her sibling troop in the war she was recommended to the school by Argile. Very shy but has opened up to the others over time.

Nightwing: Echospeaker, she/her, Taller than average and with oddly light pink scales. Has some mindreading skill but only after she knows the dragons name. A strong silent type she has grown to loosen up by being away from her parents. They were the ones that sent her off to school.

Rainwing: Melon, she/her, a long bodied rainwing of vibrant colors. A very chatty gal but only with her winglet, not because shes shy but she does not like others. She gets introuble for her disgusted faces and shifting to annoyed colors at the other students. It takes a bit to get past this hard exterior. She heard of the school through sun time gossip.

Sandwing: Desert Rose, she/her, A large sandwing Animus. She has not really used her powers as she does not understand them. Shes rather playful when shes not worrying about school work. She lived in a village near the scorpion den, the den being where her parents heard of the school.

Seawing: Flamingo, she/her, Short but strong. She has a warm personaility and loves academics. She studies hard and hopes to be able to write her own scrolls one day. She heard about the school through seawing chatter.

Skywing: Dawn, she/her, a lean skywing with shimmering wings that radiate heat. She decorates herself with gold and is an avid lover of gemstones. As well as a good cooked meal. Daughter of a blacksmith she heard about the school after her dad gave some weaponry to it.

In my current word tensions are still very high due to the ongoing war. Though the current teachers of Jade mountain have kept the school open finding education to be important even in times of war.

why is it the moment i start talking about lord of the rings ( a series i am not involved in fandom wise ) it starts popping up everywhere ... recommended on youtube, fandom stuff on twitter, gifs on tumblr. these movies are calling out to me i guess. and i haven't even thought about it in years. the call will be answered soon tho dw. i just don't wanna watch them alone because let's be real, this is an experience best shared with someone else lol.

but yeah i still remember when i was little my cousin watched one of these movies with me, he had them all on dvd and i was soooo jealous. i used to be terrified of gollum he was literally so scary to me ( still is ? ) and just ... the worst lol. but! basically these movies were very very important to my childhood, i grew up on them and watched them with my dad all the time, literally rivals harry potter for me in terms of best movie series ever. i did watch all of the hobbit movies like last year which obvs aren't as good but i always like martin freeman so ... yk. also smaug stays slaying i love that dragon. will never forget watching all those movies in theatres for my bday lol, one girl cried cause of the giant spiders scene. like girl shut up.

also the fact that the extended versions of lotr are like. nearly 4 hours long each ( with return of the king being 4 AND A HALF?! ) is insane to me. sorry i'm sticking to the theatrical releases...

anyway lotr ramble? never thought i'd see the day but here we are. just kinda forgot how much i adore these movies so!

(said with a new yorker accent) joima

IT'S NEVER OVER!!! ALL MY BLOOD FOR THE SWEETNESS OF HER LAUGHTER! IT'S NEVER OOOOVERRRRR ! SHE IS THE TEAR THAT HANGS INSIDE MY SOUL FOREVER

There’s an old children’s joke. You hold up a white piece of paper and ask, what’s this?

A Rabbit In A Snowstorm